SUZ-OOPSY! Ichiro Suzuki’s error in right field during the fifth inning didn’t help Phil Hughes end his nine-game winless streak in the Yankees’ 5-2 loss to the Blue Jays. Photo: Reuters

SUZ-OOPSY! Ichiro Suzuki’s error in right field during the fifth inning didn’t help Phil Hughes end his nine-game winless streak in the Yankees’ 5-2 loss to the Blue Jays. (Reuters)

TORONTO — If Joe Girardi had a legitimate option, Phil Hughes would have been out of the Yankees’ starting rotation a long time ago.

Now, with his team attempting to stay relevant in the race for the second AL wild card, the Yankees manager has to ask himself if he can give Hughes the ball again — even though the alternatives are long relievers David Huff and Adam Warren. The left-handed Huff took over for Hughes last night and turned in a second straight strong outing.

After showing small signs of improvement in his previous two starts, Hughes regressed last night at Rogers Centre, where the lowly Blue Jays, who had five players in the lineup that spent time in the minors this season, dropped a 5-2 loss on the Yankees in front of 35,241.

“Right now he’s in our rotation,’’ Girardi said after Hughes allowed five runs (four earned), seven hits and three walks (one intentional) in 4 2/3 innings. “We haven’t talked about taking him out of the rotation. We didn’t make a play behind him.’’

Girardi was talking about a killer error committed by right fielder Ichiro Suzuki that fueled a three-run fifth to gave the Blue Jays and R.A. Dickey a 5-2 advantage.

“He should have given up three runs in five innings,’’ Girardi said of Hughes, who is 4-13 overall and 0-6 with a 5.84 ERA in his last nine starts.

Ichiro wasn’t very interested in discussing his third error of the season — and one that changed the game.

“There is nothing special I can tell you about,’’ said Ichiro, who jumped for Edwin Encarnacion’s fly to the warning track and had it spill out of his glove. “It was a judgment I made and jumped. That’s what happened. I don’t think there is more to explain. Everybody saw it; nothing much to explain.’’

However, the 10-time Gold Glove outfielder was mortified.

“If I could have gone straight home from right field I would have,’’ Suzuki said. “I was that embarrassed.’’

Coupled with the A’s beating the Tigers, the Yankees fell 4 1/2 lengths back in the race for the second wild card spot with 31 games remaining.

For those pinstriped Pollyannas who believe the Yankees can still cop the AL East, they dropped to 7 1/2 games back of the idle first-place Red Sox.

Hughes refused to blame Suzuki’s costly error on the Yankees’ third loss in four games.

“You have to find a way to pitch around it,’’ Hughes said. “I didn’t do a good enough job to get out of the inning. It’s part of the game. I really couldn’t make a pitch after that. I left a lot of sliders over the middle of the plate. The slider, when I needed it, was flat.’’

Derek Jeter’s return from the DL didn’t bolster a lineup that has scored nine runs in the last four games and has gone a combined 2-for-23 (.087) in that stretch. They were hitless in seven at-bats last night with runners in scoring position.

One of the runs came in the fifth, on Alex Rodriguez’s 650th career homer.

Jeter went 0-for-3, walked, struck out and hit into a double play.

Dickey held the Yankees to two runs (one earned) and six hits in 6 1/3 innings. It was only the Blue Jays’ second win in 14 games against the Yankees this season.

In Huff’s last two relief outings he has worked eight scoreless innings, given up a hit, walked five (one intentionally) and whiffed seven.

“He has pitched really well, and obviously you’re thinking all the time,’’ Girardi said of Huff, is in his second stint with the Yankees after being promoted from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Aug. 15.

The prospect of somebody like Huff taking Hughes’ spot at the start of the season was laughable.